Ingbretson Studio

of Drawing and Painting

PAUL INGBRETSON

Paul Ingbretson

Paul Ingbretson is an accomplished professional artist and teacher and a leading
modern day exponent of what became known as the "Boston School" of American art.
His background includes several years at the Art Students League of New York with
numerous of their top artists but who ultimately organized his artistic approach
around the values associated with the "Boston School" as interpreted by the late
R. H. Ives Gammell. Paul is equally adept and successful in painting portrait,
interior, still life and landscape; teaches privately in Manchester and Haverhill,
New Hampshire; and is currently president of the prestigious Guild of Boston Artists
initially formed by the artists responsible for the evolution of the "Boston School"
at the beginning of the 20th Century.

From early childhood Paul was mesmerized by the representational arts beginning
with the portraits of Gilbert Stuart and then the great works of the more distant
past. As with many young people coming out of the 60's in search of an education
that would enable their pursuit of this fascination, the acquisition of the skills
necessary to produce similarly wonderful work proved elusive. He searched the West
Coast without finding a place to study and, after some false starts, eventually
turned to the highly regarded Art Student's League.

The introduction to Impressionist light via "broken" color that he received
there through Robert Brackman (via Hawthorne) and others profoundly affected him
but ultimately the desire to incorporate the finer draughtsmanship which he saw in
so much of the work he loved forced him to look elsewhere. He was equally
frustrated that professional painters there merely taught classes rather than acting
as mentors. Paul's discovery of the "Boston School" trained painter, R. H. Ives
Gammell and his subsequent studies in Gammell's French-style Boston "atelier" put
him finally in touch with the missing pieces. Unlike the unstructured catch-as-catch-can
approach to education in New York the private Gammell "atelier" systematically
taught the tenets of fine painting typical of the training in Paris prior to the
Twentieth Century. Gammell took personal responsibility for the education of those
under his tutelage, not just making sure they could draw academically but taking pains
to assure that when they left him they could hang out a sign that said, "Painter,"
meaning they could professionally handle anything that was asked of them.

Probably the most unexpected result of Paul's work in the Gammell circle was
his introduction to the Boston School and through it a connection with so many of
the great masters he had so long admired. Unlike the conversation of those he had
previously studied with, Gammell's was replete with the great sayings, the wisdom,
the "lore," of his 19th Century European educated teachers. Gammell also directed
his students to the their writings, the writings of others who knew them, and their
masters before them. This information would prove crucial to Paul's complete
understanding and mastery of the field. In the spirit of so many of his predecessors,
Paul considers it his duty to provide this training to those of the next generation
of painters who share his enthusiasm for this wonderful and enduring art.